Monitor To Build New Press; Layoffs At The Valley News
I was not the only one who saw the news on Wednesday that the Concord Monitor would be building a new printing press in Penacook, at the Rivco building, and thought, “Hmm, interesting …” It would appear that while the report I put together at Patch back in March was not 100 percent correct, it was partially correct (more rather than not, just the wrong location), despite the denial that the story was inaccurate.
After reading the story in the Monitor, I immediately went to the Valley News website, to see if there were any changes happening there, and saw this note from the publisher. Going back to my report, while the Monitor would have saved more money and had easier transportation from its facility (or a new one in Lebanon), there must have been major concerns by the company that moving out of Concord would have cost them more than they would save in the long run.
Having thought about the layoffs at The Valley News and the combined operations changes of both VNews and the Monitor, as well as the notifications that both org’s readers received this morning, a kudos needs to be given to the VNews publisher for going into detail about the changes (like the Gannett deal) whereas Monitor readers weren’t provided as many details.
However, he gets a thumbs down for laying blame to the tariffs on newsprint exports from Canada since all of these changes have been in the works way before the tariffs and before Trump was even elected (the rumors that the Monitor would be selling its currently location have been floating around for more than two years now).
And the Monitor company statement … 130 years of “fair-minded” news? LOL Maybe back in the old days but not the past 15 years that I’ve seen.
I have to say that it would have been nice for the Monitor publisher to have briefed its readers the way the VNews did instead of issuing a press release; it was much more personal.
At the same time, as I realized while I was researching the Tippy McBride missing persons case, the newspaper, back in the old days, really wasn’t as great as we all thought it was. In fact, these days, there is more local news in it than back in the 1980s. The front pages in those days were full of wire copy and an obsessive, statewide things that, in hindsight, really don’t seem that important especially when a story about a missing teen is buried on the inside. And for months and months, according to the microfilm, there were no follow-ups. No follow-ups also on the one-year, five-year, or 10-year anniversary of her disappearance. Decades later, there was more extensive coverage, mainly by Annmarie Timmins.
Here’s hoping the Monitor can keep it together.